Just purchased, for 35 cents, a slim German text book last checked out of New York’s DeWitt Clinton High School in Feb. of 1931. (By Aaron Weiss, if you were wondering. It says so on the call slip.) What really got me is the “Law of the State of New York. Education Law – Section 1128” slapped there on the inside of the cover: “Whoever willfully detains any book or other property belonging to any Public Educational Institutition, shall be punished by a fine of not less than one or more than twenty five dollars or by inprisonment in jail…
Author: lskenazy
Hi Readers! Here’s an honest reflection by writer/editor/mom of two, Denise Schipani, whose blog is Confessions of a Mean Mommy. The Bus Stop Conundrum: To Free-Range or Not Free-Range? By Denise Schipani Last fall, a new family moved into our neighborhood, and on the first day of school, there was a new girl at our little bus stop. They’d arrived at their house literally the day before school started. From Israel. That first day, the father took his little girl, Hadar, 6, to the stop. She wanted to take the bus (even though her English wasn’t very strong), and…
Hey, this is just terrific news! Eagle Place Townhomes in Colorado has lifted its ban that forbid ANY CHILD UNDER AGE 16 FROM PLAYING OUTSIDE WITHOUT ADULT SUPERVISION. Let’s hear it for the power of the press! An article in the Boulder Camera earlier this week highlighted the Townhomes’ bylaws that began, “While children bring such joy to our lives and we all love seeing them outside playing in their carefree world, we cannot have them unsupervised.” (Excuse me: Does that not sound EXACTLY like Dolores Umbrage in Harry Potter?) Anyway, one a spotlight shone bright on the anti-kiddie complex,…
Hi Readers — It’s summer! Time for kids to run around and ride their bikes and play like puppies till the moon shoos them home. Unless, that is, they’re living in the Eagle Place Townhomes in Lafayette, Colorado. There, no children are allowed to play outside, unsupervised, until age 16. That’s right. No kids. Outside. Without an adult. Period. That’s the new, written rule at the 60-home development and can you guess the reason given? Of course you can! You can recite it in your sleep! Quoth the property manager: “We just want them to be safe.” This article, in…
Readers: Here’s a lovely piece about …well, not exactly about any Free-Range issue in particular. But it sure resonates. — Lenore By Julie Ann Kodmur Who knew how much you could learn from a bunch of horses?! Certainly not me — until my then-3 year old daughter started taking lessons at a humble barn in the small town in the Napa Valley where we live. Watching the children practice emergency dismounts early on got my attention: little bodies flying over the big bodies to land smartly on the ground with big smiles, nice and tidy, nice and safe,…
The latest victim of parental terror? Sleepovers. According to this AP story by Kelli Kennedy, parents are afraid of everything from junk food to “inappropriate” movies, to Internet surfing, to the possibility of their children being drugged and raped. The modern parental thinking method applies: Since a drugging/fondling incident DID happen once, and since it was ON THE NEWS, it must be happening ALL THE TIME, and it could POSSIBLY, even PROBABLY, happen to MY kid, so in order to avoid this fate, I must PROTECT my child by glue-gunning her to my side. (Ouch!) Now,…
So here’s the story, as reported in The Daily Mail: A 9-year-old boy from Germany visits his five cousins in England. They go to a park, the boy climbs a tree, a neighbor complains that the kids are being rowdy, the tree-climber gets a ticket. It’s crazy to ticket a boy for climing a tree. But I have to say, while I would normally make this an “Outrage of the Week!” the boy’s dad blew it for me by saying that now his son will be too scared to come back to England. The whole problem with the world…
Readers — Here’s a cool idea courtesy of a babysitter named Casey up in the Canadian town of Saskatoon.It not only sounds fun, it sounds like a great “Challenge of the Week.” Or at least something you might enjoy trying. Let us know how it goes if you do! — Lenore The kids I babysit and I are doing a HUGE summer project this year. We have planned to go to all of the parks in our city, play on them, and rate them on a scale of 1-5. So far we’ve been to about half of the parks and…
Readers — This comes from a dad outside of Philadelphia. Obviously, not every child with autism has his son’s abilities or temperament. But here is one dad’s story: By Roy Lewis Our oldest is now 26…and autistic. When he was 8 we moved to a house in a nice safe suburb that was a quarter mile from a nice, safe 1920s suburban shopping mall with commuter trains and bus service. The idea was that he could have some independence as he got older, even though he probably would not be driving at the same age as his friends,…
Lovely Washington Post essay by Michael Gerson on summertime, camp, growing up, letting go, etc., etc. — with one alarming factoid: Can it be true that some Girl Scout camps FORBID climbing trees? Talk about the ultimate Free-Range metaphor. And to think I was just eating Girl Scout cookies for breakfast. (Kids, do as I SAY, not as I eat!) — Lenore